I\u2019m reading Margaret Atwood\u2019s The Blind Assassin (not for kids). Atwood writes with such skill that I\u2019m plunged into awe. I wish I could do what she does. Her prose is poetic, yet nothing about its beauty is difficult. She raises no obstacles of ornateness, and she reminds me that story needs to come first, which comforts me: If I can tell my story straightforwardly, I\u2019m okay.<\/p>\n
Here are some prosaic, even mechanical things that I pay attention to when I write and when I revise. The point is to make my prose lively without shifting the focus away from my story.<\/p>\n
I vary my sentence beginnings or at least don\u2019t let three sentences in a row start in the same way. Two identical beginnings are acceptable (my rule). When I\u2019m writing in first person I don\u2019t let one sentence after another start with I. However, no rule applies all the time. Sometimes repeating a beginning sets up a beat that I like.<\/p>\n
A critique buddy once remarked that I wasn\u2019t avoiding the verb is, which made me self-conscious and worried. I hadn\u2019t considered is before. Is isn\u2019t interesting, but it is unavoidable. Now that my friend pointed out my profligate ising, I\u2019ve been rearranging some sentences to bring more striking verbs into the act. Still, whenever I read is in a string of sentences by an author I like, I think, See, even she or he does it.<\/p>\n
In my first submission of Writing Magic, my editor found twenty zillion appearances of the word stuff. I hadn\u2019t noticed, maybe because I like the word, which feels friendly and informal – but I didn\u2019t like it enough to want it to show up seven times on every page. In my latest manuscript for the Disney Fairies series, I wrote “Atop the tabletop.” I didn\u2019t mean to do that. Good thing my editor caught it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m lucky to have editors who are sensitive to word repetition, but I cultivate my own sensitivity, too. Whenever I suspect that I\u2019m overusing a word, I type it in a list above the title of my book. Just before I submit the manuscript, I do a word search on the list. If a word appears too often I consult the thesaurus for alternatives.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, in Peter Pan, James M. Barrie repeatedly uses the phrase “of course.” I adore Peter Pan and think Barrie a supple stylist. When I write my books about the fairies of Neverland, I connect them to Barrie by scattering “of course” with abandon.<\/p>\n
On the other other hand, in a book about writing (I don\u2019t remember which one), I read that extraordinary words shouldn\u2019t appear more than once or twice in a whole book. For example, I like the word susurration, which means a whispering sound, because it\u2019s onomatopoeic, which means it sounds like what it means. But I wouldn\u2019t use susurration more than once in a book. The reader would notice. The word would draw attention to itself and away from the story.<\/p>\n
(Susurration seems to be a noun without a verb form. Webster\u2019s shows no susurrate. Susurrate appears in the OED as rare. How interesting!)<\/p>\n
My sentences tend to be short. That\u2019s how I write. That\u2019s my style. See? However, when I remember, I write against type and connect independent clauses with a because or since or so, because I don\u2019t want every sentence to be four words long. Even so, lyrical fifty-word sentences are unusual in my books.<\/p>\n
In addition to length, I switch around my sentence structures. For example, I don\u2019t like sentence after sentence consisting of two independent clauses connected by comma and. I prefer short sentences to that. I also dislike a series of this-comma-but-that sentences that, so I use however, though, although, or, better yet, recast the ideas entirely.<\/p>\n
This is all a matter of taste. Some writers don\u2019t care about any of these things. When I\u2019m caught up in reading a story, I don\u2019t care either, but when I\u2019m starting a novel or returning to one and I\u2019m not yet hypnotized, I do notice. I get annoyed. I may even ditch the book.<\/p>\n
If you want to play around with your own repetition, examine something short that you\u2019ve written. Look for your tics – the words you overuse, your sentence arrangements – and fiddle with them. As you continue to write your longer work, keep these ideas in mind. I don\u2019t suggest you go back if you\u2019re in the middle of a novel. In fact, I believe that would be a bad idea, not at all worth your time. When you finish and revise, however, look for your repetitions and ask your critique pals to look too. Have fun, and save your changes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m reading Margaret Atwood\u2019s The Blind Assassin (not for kids). Atwood writes with such skill that I\u2019m plunged into awe. I wish I could do what she does. Her prose is poetic, yet nothing about its beauty is difficult. She raises no obstacles of ornateness, and she reminds me that story needs to come first, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[284],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}